Book of Common Prayer
ALEPH.
1 ¶ Blessed are those who walk in the perfect way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are those that keep his testimonies and that seek him with their whole heart.
3 For those who do no iniquity walk in his ways.
4 ¶ Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5 O that my ways were ordered to keep thy statutes!
6 Then I shall not be ashamed, when I have insight unto all thy commandments.
7 ¶ I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
8 I will keep thy statutes; O do not utterly forsake me.
BETH.
9 ¶ With what shall a young man cleanse his way? when he shall keep thy word.
10 ¶ With my whole heart I have sought thee; O let me not err from thy commandments.
11 ¶ Thy spoken word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
12 ¶ Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.
13 ¶ With my lips I have declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as above all riches.
15 I will meditate in thy precepts and consider thy ways.
16 I will delight myself in thy statutes; I will not forget thy words.
GIMEL.
17 ¶ Deal bountifully with thy slave that I may live and keep thy word.
18 ¶ Open my eyes, and I shall behold the wonders of thy law.
19 ¶ I am a stranger in the earth; hide not thy commandments from me.
20 ¶ My soul is broken from desiring thy judgments at all times.
21 ¶ Thou hast reprehended the proud; cursed are those who err from thy commandments.
22 ¶ Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies.
23 ¶ Princes also sat and spoke against me as thy slave spoke according to thy statutes.
24 ¶ For thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors.
To the Overcomer upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Help, LORD; for the merciful man ceases, for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
2 Each one speaks vanity with his neighbour: they speak with flattering lips and with a double heart.
3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things:
4 Who have said, With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
5 For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise, saith the LORD; I will set in safety the one whom the wicked one has ensnared.
6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
8 The wicked press in on every side when the vilest men are exalted.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
6 I will sing unto the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is no one that does good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is no one that does good, no, not one.
4 ¶ The workers of iniquity certainly know this; those who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD.
5 There they were in great fear: for God is with the nation of the righteous.
6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor because the LORD is his hope.
7 Oh that the saving health of Israel were come out of Zion! When the LORD turns back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
6 ¶ And Job answered and said,
7 ¶ Man certainly has an appointed amount of time upon earth, and his days are like the days of a hireling.
2 As a slave earnestly desires the shade and as a hireling waits for rest from his work,
3 so I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.
4 When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? I measure the night, and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken and abominable.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and are spent without hope.
7 ¶ Remember thou that my life is wind and that my eyes shall not return to see good.
8 The eyes of those that see me now shall not see me again; thine eyes shall be upon me, and I will cease to be.
9 As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goes down to Sheol, who shall not come up again;
10 he shall return no more to his house; neither shall his place know him any more.
11 Therefore, I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I a sea, or a dragon, that thou settest a watch over me?
13 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;
14 then thou dost scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions.
15 And my soul thought it better to be strangled and desired death more than my bones.
16 I loathed life; I do not desire to live for ever; let me alone; for my days are vanity.
17 ¶ What is man that thou should magnify him and that thou should set thine heart upon him
18 and that thou should visit him every morning and try him every moment?
19 For how long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone until I swallow down my spittle?
20 If I have sinned, what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?
21 And why dost thou not take away my rebellion and pass over my iniquity? For now I shall sleep in the dust; and if thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not be found.
10 ¶ There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the company called the Italian,
2 a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, who gave many alms to the people and prayed to God always.
3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him and saying unto him, Cornelius.
4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms {lit. thine acts of mercy} are come up for a memorial before God.
5 And now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter;
6 he lodges with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side; he shall tell thee what it behooves thee to do.
7 And when the angel who spoke unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier of those that waited on him continually;
8 and when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.
9 ¶ On the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew near unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour;
10 and he became very hungry and would have eaten; but while they made ready, he fell into a rapture of understanding
11 and saw the heaven opened and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down to the earth,
12 in which were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth and wild beasts and reptiles and fowls of the air.
13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat.
14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
15 And the voice spoke unto him again the second time, That which God has cleansed, do not call common.
16 This was done three times, and the vessel was received up again into heaven.
7 ¶ After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Judea because the Jews sought to kill him.
2 Now the feast of the Jews, of the tabernacles, was at hand.
3 His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart from this place and go into Judea that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.
4 For no one who seeks to be clearly known does anything in secret. If thou doest these things, show thyself to the world.
5 For not even his brethren believed in him.
6 Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready.
7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil.
8 Go ye up unto this feast; I go not up yet unto this feast, for my time is not yet fulfilled.
9 And having said these things unto them, he abode still in Galilee.
10 But when his brethren were gone up, then he also went up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.
11 Then the Jews sought him at the feast and said, Where is he?
12 And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him, for some said, He is a good man; others said, No, but he deceives the people.
13 But no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.
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